As episode No. 9 opens up, we see Charlie Rader dealing with his family issues. While it hasn’t been seen much on the show, we all knew that he was dealing with a big custody battle. He hadn’t seen his kid in two years, and he was going back and forth with that. It was definitely a huge ordeal for him. Not seeing your kid has got to be tough, and it definitely shook him up a lot.

Of course, there wasn’t much time for emotion, as the final quarterfinal bouts were quickly underway.

First up was Zach Davis and Chuck O’Neil.

Zach definitely didn’t want this fight. He knew he had already beaten the guy. I was the same way. I didn’t want to rematch Javier Torres, even though he really wanted to rematch with me. That’s why I felt so happy when Chuck beat Javier. I knew I wouldn’t have to fight that same fight again.

Zach went in there, but Chuck was hyped and definitely wanted to avenge his loss. It was kind of a hard fight to watch, honestly, because Zach got busted up. I think he was trying to utilize the exact same gameplan as the first fight, but this time Chuck knew exactly what was coming.

Chuck is definitely a better fighter on the ground than he is standing up, but he had the perfect plan.

Zach got completely busted up, and it turns out he has to retire. It’s definitely bad news, but it wasn’t completely unexpected. Zach’s eyes are susceptible to that type of injury. He actually tore his retina in a prior fight. They weren’t going to allow him to fight anymore, but they let him on the show. Essentially, his eyes protrude more than most, so he’s susceptible to the injury. It wasn’t really like a freak injury. His eyes are just shaped differently. Still, you never want to see something like that happen.

Afterward, we see Ryan McGillivray going through his emotions, as well.

Ryan missed his daughter very much. He was always talking about her. She had a birthday while Ryan was in the house, and they had a cake for her and sang “Happy Birthday” to her. He blew out the candles and everything. I guess everyone was missing their kids very much.

The thing with Ryan was, and we didn’t find this out until after the fight, but he had a concussion after his first fight. Not to take anything away from Tony, but from Ryan told us, he didn’t practice until a few days before the fight. He couldn’t spar because of the concussion. The doctor even recommended he not fight, at least according to Ryan. Basically, he was in no condition to fight.

It wasn’t a crazy power shot that hurt him. He got rocked, but his brain was so messed up from the fight with Len Bentley that he didn’t have a chance. If you have a concussion, you need to rest. When I saw that knockout happen, I was honestly just very concerned for his well-being. He was a space cadet after that fight happened. I was praying he didn’t have an aneurysm or something. He fought when maybe he shouldn’t have.

On to the semifinals

At that point, we were up 3-1 going into the semifinals. There’s not much team camaraderie at that point, though. More than anything you just don’t want to fight a teammate. I asked to be paired with Ramsey Nijem. You can see exactly why when Chuck and Tony Ferguson are paired up. It’s no fun fighting a friend.

I wasn’t calling out Ramsey or anything. I just didn’t want to fight someone from my own team. If I had to fight Chuck or Tony, it would have made for a weird dynamic. When you have to fight someone from your own team, and you sleep right next to them, it’s just weird. I knew I’d rather just go against Ramsey, even though I think Chuck probably was the best matchup for me. I just didn’t want to fight a teammate.

It’s a weird vibe when you have to go against your teammates and training partners, and you could see it when they were matched up. It’s no fun, and I felt for both of them. It’s a weird situation.

At that point, Brock Lesnar knew he had three fighters in the semis, and I think he kind of felt his job was done. I don’t want to say he stopped coaching, but it seemed like he thought there was nothing left to do. I mean, we were down in the quarterfinals, and then in the semis there was only one guy left from the other team.

Drama in the house

Of course, while the fights were important, the big story was the insane house eruption. Honestly, there was a lot of stuff that was left out.

Previous episodes didn’t show that Tony drinks a bottle of Patron after every fight. He drank a lot at the house. Usually, it was just a couple of beers around the house, but after fights, it was different. And the night of his birthday, he got trashed.

I’m a recovering alcoholic. That was one of the hardest things for me in the house, not drinking. After the Javier fight, I wanted to drink. After the Shamar Bailey fight, I wanted to drink. But I didn’t.

For the most part, Tony’s drinking was no big deal, but as you can see, it got bad quickly.

The night before the big blow-up, we were all outside by the fire, and Tony started in on me. Then he went in on Len Bentley. Then it was Charlie.

Tony actually had some points. He was calling out people for talking behind people’s back. It’s the reason I knew nothing about the whole “double agent” thing. Tony definitely has a drinking problem, but he’s also a standup guy. If he doesn’t like something, he’ll let you know.

Everyone was drinking, but Tony got up and gave a speech about how if you have a problem with someone, you should talk about it. That gave Charlie the confidence to call out Len. Him and Len got into it, but Len just basically walked off and did his own thing. All that went down a day or two before everything happened in the house.

That night, it started with everyone joking around. I wasn’t interested in dealing with it because Tony had issues with me already. He was drunk, and I wasn’t interested in getting in his face. Once I heard a commotion, I just went upstairs and didn’t even listen to it at all. I didn’t see any of the fight go down until it aired on TV. I heard stuff breaking, camera guys running around and this and that, and I wasn’t interested.

I really felt for Charlie. He was crying. It was ridiculous. How could a guy say that about a kid he hadn’t seen in two years? That’s when Chuck flipped a switch. He had issues fighting Tony before, but not after that. He wanted to take that guy out.

After that incident, I think we all blacklisted Tony. Nobody wanted to talk to him. You don’t come back from that. You can’t talk about another man’s kid. He brought Charlie to tears.

The ironic part is that before this episode, nobody had see Tony talk about anything. He’s a quiet guy on the show. Everybody thought he was awesome. He’d do little magic tricks around the house and tell good stories. But he called himself “El Cucui.” And I’ll tell you, when “The Boogeyman” drinks, he’s a-whole-nother element. He’s definitely a mean drunk. He was looking to stir [expletive] up that night.

It’s sad because I think this thing had been brewing. The night of Tony’s birthday, when he was wasted, he took baking powder and threw it on Charlie’s head, really hard. Charlie laughed it off, but when I saw that, I knew Tony was a physical drunk. Two weeks later, he gets loaded on Patron, and this fight happens.

The house wasn’t totally destroyed. I mean, we have to pay for that stuff. But it as definitely trashed.

This was the hardest part of the season to focus. Now we knew what the semifinals were. Those that were eliminated were jus hoarding food. They’re walking around at like 200 pounds, and the four of us that were left were trying to watch our food intake and our diet.

Thanks again for reading guys, I was definitely looking forward to my semifinal fight, and I knew I couldn’t make it without my team at The Arena and my strength and conditioning coach, Tom Hill.

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